Wow, a new story to publish and keep tabs on. I started this one almost 3 years ago, crazy huh? Not finished yet, but it will be a work in progress :-)

I am officially back! I know I've been gone awhile, but writing is one of my new years goals and I've been daydreaming again, so here it is. I hope you all enjoy. This is my original work, no stealing please. Tell me what you think.

Hugs- Katie

Chapter One

I'll never forget the day my mother told me she was remarrying. It was the beginning of junior year, and his name was Carl. My mom had known the man for a mere five months. They were always out on weekends, taking impromptu trips to Hawaii or Europe, all the while I stayed home eating a whole bag of Cheetos alone, wondering why I didn't even know the man's last name. Maybe it was because I barely met him. It was a brief encounter, right before they were leaving for dinner one night. He had short dark hair, his face was tan and had a few laugh lines. He wore a polo shirt, dark jeans and he was handsome. At least, for someone who was forty-two.

"Hello Priscilla," he said to me, a great big grin on his face. His teeth were extremely white. "Your Mother has spoken so much about you. You would get along with my son so well."

I kind of ignored the man after that. Why would I care about his son? I knew this was just one of those guys my mom dated for a couple of months, before he dumped her because he wasn't ready for a bigger commitment, or a stepdaughter. My mom had me at nineteen, and my parents divorced seven years later. My mom was just too immature and young when she had me. She wasn't ready. And now that she's older, she's ready for another husband. She's ready for family life. Well, that's great. What was I? Just a mistake practice child from your failed marriage? I'm not saying that my mother was completely awful raising me. She just enjoyed the night life too much on weekends. It was like she was soccer mom during the week, single hottie on the weekend. My dad remarried almost instantaneously. Her name is Tina, and they're still together. Along with their picture perfect family. Ten year old Max and seven year old Michelle. I guess I just fail to complete that picture because I wasn't invited to their family photo that hangs above the living room fireplace. I'm the weekend daughter. The outcast in the background, the one that belongs to another mother.

The news of my mother remarrying came at the worst time. They just had to tell me on my sixteenth birthday.

"Guess what? We have wonderful news Prissy!" my mother shouted happily, standing next to the man who took up most of her time. He smiled as happily as her. I knew the news wasn't for me. At first I thought, 'oh my gosh! There's a brand new Jetta in the driveway, isn't there?' But I knew that wasn't it. My mother didn't have enough money to spoil me, and my dad well, just wasn't going to buy me a car. Max needed braces.

"What?" I asked warily.

"We're getting married!" My mom's brown eyes suddenly had tears in them.

"Isn't this great?" Carl asked me.

"Um…this is my birthday. Why couldn't you like, wait till next week?" I asked. My mom looked like she was ready to smack the snotty look off my face.

So, I quickly gave a fake smile to evaporate her angry frown and said, "Yeah. It's great."

"I knew you would be happy for me," my mom pulled me into her, hugged me tightly as I gasped for air from her chest. I wasn't happy. I mean, I wanted my mom to be happy. But I myself wasn't happy at all. Especially when they told me I had to move into Carl's house. The house that also had his teenage son living in it. The son I had never met. How awkward would that be? Before I knew it, we were all packed up and moving into the gigantic seven thousand square foot house Carl called home. Which was the only good thing about becoming somewhat related to the guy. Everything else was just bad. Everything including his son.

Why did it have to be the most popular guy at my school? Gavin Langford was not only the hottest junior, but also dating the hottest girl, Arden Tilley. I think the only reason why she was popular, aside from the fact that she was gorgeous enough to be Angelina Jolie's child, was that her name was unique. And okay, my name is too. But come on, my name is like something you would give a cat covered in fluffy white fur. At least Arden sounds pretty. Maybe my name's the reason I'm socially awkward. "Hello, my name is Priscilla." Then, everyone, and I mean everyone I meets says in return, "Like Priscilla Pressley? Is that how your mom got the name?"

Then I respond by saying, "She was on drugs." Maybe I'm too monotone when I joke about that, because people think I'm serious and change the subject. In all honesty, my mom found it in a baby name book, and I've been taunted with the horrible name since.

Well, some people say it's pretty, like my grandmother Betty. She loves it. She says it's an unusual name for an unusual girl. And I think she means that in a good way. But when you're seven years old, trying to recover from your parents split, it's not the best name. Especially when you have to deal with obnoxious other seven year olds calling you Sissy Prissy just because you started crying when you couldn't answer a math question the teacher wanted completed. It was a simple one, like two plus three. But no one knew what I was going through, so for the rest of second grade my name was Sissy Prissy.

I knew why I had a crush on Gavin for my whole high school life and my best friend Chelsea knew too. My freshman year he talked to me. We had lockers next to each other. It was before he was dating Arden. In fact, he wasn't dating anyone. He looked so cute in his clothes that appeared like they were new for the school year. He asked me if I was a freshman. I nodded my head. He told me he was a sophomore and that high school would get easier as time went on, because I told him I was a little nervous about it. He gave me a big smile before going on to his first class. I talked sporadically to him as weeks went on, but he never asked me out. It could have been that he wasn't interested, plain and simple. But I knew it was more. I wasn't pretty enough. Chelsea told me otherwise, but I didn't believe her. If I was gorgeous, I would have already been sitting next to him at lunch. I would have been going to the dances with him, watching the football games with him. Instead, I stared at him longingly for two school years, wondering when on earth would a guy like him, ever manage to become a boyfriend to someone like me?

I'm not that ugly. Okay, well not as ugly as Shrek. I'm decent enough. My mom says I look like her when she was in high school. Which I'll say is a compliment because she was the cheerleading pretty girl. We have the same blonde hair, brown eyes, smile. We're even the same height. Five foot three. But my mom did mention something that we didn't have in common, and that fact still remains. She's a size two and I'm a size eight. She was always a size two, even after she gave birth to me. I suppose my father's genes dominated, because my father has to work out like he's auditioning for the next Rocky movie. He says his metabolism is slow, and that he has to eat everything low in fat and watch his calories to keep in shape. I tried not to be hurt when my mother pointed the truth out.

I know I've always had a little more of me to love, but did she have to say it so blatantly?

"Priscilla, I think it's a wise decision that you go to the gym with me once and awhile. Why let a pretty face go to waste? I just don't want guys to not want you because of this."

Like I was gigantic. I was only 128 pounds in ninth grade. It wasn't like I was obese. My mom thought that if you weren't on the verge of anorexic, then you weren't thin.

I tried not to choke on my own tears as I said, "Maybe I don't want them!"

"Priscilla. I love you. That's why I'm saying this. It's for your own good."

If it was for my own good, couldn't she just say it nicer? Why hurt my feelings? As if her words would make me want to lose weight, it didn't. It just made me want to eat even more. I had almost a whole box of those powdered sugar donuts. The mini ones. What's worse is, after I ate it, I felt more guilty than I ever had in my entire life. Suddenly all I could think about was my waist line. In ninth grade I lost ten pounds in one week. But once I got a little confident, the weight came back on. And then some. It was like an ongoing battle that I didn't want to fight anymore. I didn't want my mom to despise me, but I wasn't ever that fat. Chubby, I would like to call it. I just weighed about twenty more pounds than the stick figures in my high school. I didn't want to worry about dieting anymore. So when junior year was about to start, I stopped worrying. Then I met Gavin. Again. Face to face. In my new house.

"Hey," He lazily got up from the sofa after Carl demanded he did, walked over to me and slowly shook my hand. He barely looked at me, and then returned to the sofa to watch that Beavis and Butthead movie. I was astounded. He didn't even remember me. All that time that we shared the downstairs hall lockers, he couldn't recognize me? I remembered every little thing he said to me that entire time. Every time I saw him saunter by me before I went to gym I smiled at him and he couldn't remember my name? I can't believe all those days I spent daydreaming about him in class, ignoring the teacher and missing important notes I should have been documenting. It was wasted on a guy who never saw me at all. He was just being pretend nice. The type of nice that goes to ugly girls like me. The kind that never stood a chance. Girls who are a size eight don't get the boy. The waif cheerleaders do.

"Priscilla goes to school with you Gavin," Carl tried so hard to get him to notice me. The way I wanted him to notice me those two years. Then something hit me. Hard. He was going to be my stepbrother. Something about that was unsettling.